The GOES Satellite

 
                                                      
                                                     One of the GOES Satellites

            The GOES Satellites are operated by the NOAA and are best known for
their weather monitoring, but the satellites also carry instruments for
monitoring the sun. Operating at an altitude of 35,000 Km, GOES measures x-rays,
energetic particles, and magnetic field with it's Space Environment Monitor (SEM).
        The x-ray detectors are primarily for detecting solar flares, and they are
the source of my solar flare data. The X-ray instruments use Ion chamber
detectors to measure x-ray fluxes for the 0.5-4 and 1-8 Angstrom wavelength
ranges. I used the 1.0 to 8.0 angstrom range for determining flare energies,
which was more consistent with the way that flares are usually classified.
X-ray photons pass through a collimater to restrict the view, and then through a thin metallic
window which determines the low energy cutoff before entering the ion chamber.
        The spacecraft spins and measures the solar emission once pers spin. The spin period is
0.6 seconds and the time resolution of the archive is 3.06 seconds
 


 

An Example of Data taken from the GOES Satellite.  The blue line represents the power flux that it is measuring in the
0.5 to 4.0 Angstrom range and the red line represents the powerflux that it is measuring in the 1.0 to 8.0 Angstrom range.
The letters on the right hand side represent the classification of flares. At this time there were some very large flares
(note the two X type flares on June 11th).